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A very busy week this week as the earnings reports continue to come at a fast pace, the FOMC meets again Tuesday and Wed with a statement set for release on Wed afternoon and Friday we get the July Employment numbers our of the US.

Overnight in Asia, the Yen was once again stronger and more concern over a slowing Chinese economy caused Japan to drop 3.5% and China 1.75%.

Europe however is higher at midday as Italy has started to recover at a faster pace and should see positive GDP in fiscal 2014. Markets are trading higher by about a third of a point.

US futures are down about a fifth of a point on no real news as markets wait for the Fed and the employment number later in the week. Canadian futures are flat this morning.

Gold is trading higher on the weaker dollar this morning up 10.00 to 1337.00, oil is higher by 38 cents to 105.09 and the loonie is flat at 97.33.

On the earnings front, mandate companies, Arc Resources, Air Castle and Eastman Chemical are all announcing results after the market closes this evening. I will provide the results in tomorrows blog.

A couple of big Canadian companies are in the news today. The US President stated this weekend that the job creation numbers that have been estimated for the creation and servicing of the Keystone Pipeline project will be about a tenth of what was originally estimated. Where he got the numbers from has not been divulged, however I am sure there will be much more on this in the days to come. TransCanada for their part has suggested that a $7.6bn project that spans the continental US would create and sustain more than 20000 jobs which they feel is a conservative estimate.

Lastly, the Hudson’s Bay Company today announced a deal to buy Saks the big US high end retailer for about $2.6bn. The deal, while accretive is an expensive one for HBC and the financing is being done in a number of different ways through private investment, debt and equity. The company also announced it will be reducing its dividend by about half to help pay for the deal.